An Arkansas Planter Part 26

"Too heavy," the giant answered.

"Then, I gad," Gid replied, dragging his bench from against the wall and sitting down upon it, "I know I'd ride. Do men ride for their own comfort or for the horse's? And what difference do a few extra pounds make to a horse? Why, if you were a horse somebody would ride you. You are not fat, Jim; you are just big. And a horse doesn't mind a well-proportioned fellow; it's the wabbling fat man that riles him. I owned a horse once that would have been willing to go without corn a whole week for a chance to kick a fat man; and I put it down as an unreasonable cruelty until I found out that he had once belonged to a fellow that weighed three hundred pounds."

"And you afterward owned him," said the Major, winking at Jim.

"That's what I said, John."

"Now, Gid, I don't want to appear captious, but are you sure you ever owned a horse?"

"I bought that horse, John. I confess that it was with borrowed money, but under the law he was mine. Ah, Lord," he sighed, "self-imposed frankness will be gone when I am taken from you. And yet I get no credit."

"No credit!" cried the Major. "Credit has kept you from starving."

"Tip-toe, John; my nerves are tight-strung. Would have starved! A befitting reproach thrown at genius. Look up there!" he shouted, waving his hand at the shelf whereon were piled his dingy books. "They never owned a horse and they lived on credit, but they kept the world from starving to death. And this reminds me that those sweet potatoes must be about done. Your name is among the coals, Jim; we've got enough for all hands. Wish we had some milk, but I couldn't get any. Dogs couldn't catch the cow. You hear of cows giving milk. Mine don't--I gad, I have to grab her and take it away from her; and whenever you see milk in my house you may know it's the record of a fight and that the cow got the worst of it."

Jim sat striving to think of something to say. The presence of the Major had imposed a change in his forecast. His meeting of Mayo and the negro suddenly recurred to him, and quietly he related the adventure. But the Major and Gid were not quiet with hearing it.

"You ought to have cut his throat!" Gid exclaimed. "To-morrow get your gun and shoot him down--both of them, like dogs. Who ever heard of such a thing, saying to a gentleman, 'now you may go!' I gad, I'll go with you, and we'll shoot 'em down."

"No," said the Major, and now with his hands behind him he was slowly pacing the floor. "That won't do."

"Why won't it do?" Gid cried. "Has the time come when a white man must stand all sorts of abuse simply because he is white? Must he stand flat-footed and swallow every insult that a scoundrel is pleased to stuff into his mouth?"

The Major sat down. "Let me remind you of something," he said. "For the average man, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, it is enough to have simple justice on his side, but on our side we must have more than justice. No people in the world were ever situated as we now are, for even by our brothers we shall be deemed wrong, no matter which way we turn."

"Ah," Gid cried, "then what's the use of calculating our turn? If we are to be condemned anyway, what's the----"

"Hold on a moment," the Major struck in, "and I will tell you. Sentiment is against us; literature, with its roots running back into the harsh soil of politics, is against us; and----"

"No measured oratory, John. Get down on the ground."

"Wait, I tell you!" the Major demanded. "I must get to it in my own way.

If your advice were followed, we should never be able to elect another president. The b.l.o.o.d.y shirt would wave from every window in the North, and from the northern point of view, justly so; and reviewed even by the disinterested onlooker, we have not been wholly in the right."

"The deuce we haven't!" Gid shouted, his eyes bulging.

"No, not wholly; we couldn't be," the Major continued. "As self-respecting men, as Anglo-Saxons, we could not submit to the domination of former slaves. It was asking too much. We had ruled the nation, and though we were finally overpowered, we could not accept the negro as a ruler."

"John, I know all that as well as you do; we have talked it many a time, but what I want to get at is this: Has a man the right to resent an insult? I was never cruel to a negro. I like him in his place, like him better than I do the average white man, to tell the plain truth, for between him and me there is the tie of irresponsibility, of shiftlessness; but I don't want him to insult me; don't want to stand any more from him than I would from a white man. You spoke of not being able to elect another president. Why should we put up with so much merely to say that a democrat is president? It doesn't make much difference who's president, foreign nations keep on insulting us just the same. I'd like to see a chief magistrate with nerve enough to say to the South, 'Boys, go over and grab off Mexico.' That's me."

The Major laughed. "That's me, too," he replied.

"We ought to sweeten this country with Cuba," said Jim, with his mind on the letter in his bosom.

"Yes," Gid replied, raising his hand, "that's what we ought to do, and----" His hand fell, and he wheeled about and seized a poker. "I'll bet a thousand dollars the potatoes are burned up," he said. "Just look there," he added, raking out the charred remains of what was to be a feast. "That's the way it goes. The devil t.i.tters when men argue. Well, it can't be helped," he went on. "I did my part. If we had settled upon killing that fellow Mayo, everything would have been all right. He has not only insulted us but has robbed us as well."

"To tell you the truth," said the Major, "I'm glad I'm relieved of the trouble of eating."

"John, don't say that, for when a Southern man loses his appet.i.te for roasted sweet potatoes, he's a degenerate."

The Major was about to say something, but looking at his watch he jumped up. "Gracious, Gid, you not only kill your own time but murder mine.

It's nearly two o'clock."

"Sit down, John. Don't be s.n.a.t.c.hed."

"s.n.a.t.c.hed! Wind-bag, you counsel me to blow my life away. Hold your lamp out here so that I can see to get on my horse."

When Gid returned from the pa.s.sage wherein he had stood to shelter the light, he found Jim on the bench, with no apparent intention of taking his leave; and this he construed to mean that the giant had something on his mind.

"Out with it, Jimmie," he said, as he put the lamp upon the mantel-piece. "I'll sit down here as if it was only early candle-lighting, and let you tell me all about it."

"How do you know I've got anything to say, Uncle Gideon?"

"How do I know when a dog itches? I see him scratch. You have been sitting there in an itching silence and now you begin to scratch. You are more patient than a dog, for you don't scratch until you have itched for some time. Let the fur fly, Jimmie."

Jim laughed, raised his leg and clasped his hands over his knee. "Uncle Gideon, I reckon I'm the happiest man in Cranceford County."

The old man sat leaning back against the wall. His coat was off and under his suspenders he had hooked his thumbs. "Go on, Jimmie; I'm listening."

"She has written another letter--Did Tom tell you anything?" he broke off.

"Did Tom ever tell me anything? Did Tom ever tell anybody anything? Did he ever know anything to tell?"

"She has written another letter and in it she confesses--I don't know how to say it, Uncle Gideon."

"Well, tell me and I'll say it for you. Confesses that she can be happy with no one but you. Go on."

"Who told you? Did Mrs. Cranceford?"

"My dear boy, did Mrs. Cranceford ever tell me anything except to keep off the gra.s.s? n.o.body has told me anything. Confesses that you are the only man that can make her happy. Now shoot your dye-stuff."

"But that's all there is. She says that her heart will never have a home until my love builds a mansion for it."

"Jimmie, if the highest market price for a fool was one hundred dollars, you'd fetch two hundred."

"Why? Because I believe her when she talks that way--when she gives me to understand that she loves me?"

"No; but because you didn't believe all along that she loved you."

"How could I when she refused to marry me and married another man?"

"That marriage is explained. You've seen the letter she wrote the night before she went away, haven't you?"

"Yes, her mother showed it to me."

"I didn't read it," said Gid, "but the Major gave me the points, and I know that she married that fellow believing that she was saving his soul."

"Yes, I read that," said Jim, "but I didn't know whether she meant it or not. I reckon I was afraid to believe it."